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Wednesday, 27 October 2010

Recycled Baby Jars - Tutorial

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last blog, glad you loved seeing my crafting space at home :-) One day ... yes one day I will have a lovely garden studio in my garden or a proper area in my home for me. Thinking about it though I do love sharing my crafts with my kiddies so the dining table is great for us at the moment.

As many of you may know I am a bit of an eco warrior at home. I recycle as much as I can, I don't like to throw things away (my poor mates are always getting stuff from my house just in case they find it handy :-)) and if I do think of throwing something I first ponder on what I can use if for.

This brings me to baby jars. A long time ago I found a tutorial on Craft Pudding on how to turn a baby jar into a pin cushion with the bonus of being able to store ribbon/buttons/beads in it. I wanted to make one but little Sweetpea didn't really ever have baby food from jars so I updated my status on Facebook asking for baby jars (yes my mates know I am bonkers so weren't surprised by my random request :-)). A lovely lady called Kathryn came to my rescue delivering me some baby jars - thank you Kathryn !

So I got to work. First I picked a pretty fabric and cut it to 5 inches diameter.

I then did running stitch around the circle.

When I had sewn all the way round I added stuffing (you have to use stuffing and not cotton wool as I first tried as the fibres are too thick and it won't let pins be stuck into you pin cushion :-() and started to pull the thread tight.

When it is fully tightened make sure you knot it to secure into place. Tilt head to see next couple of photos - blogger playing up again - ggrrr why does blogger do that :-(

Use a glue gun or super glue to stick this to the jar lid.

Pick some co-ordinating ribbon. Glue around the rim of the jar and then add your ribbon.

Ta da - some fantastic little things that look lovely and are also useful. Plus you get the feel good factor of using up old jars. I use my little jar all the time - it is fantastic!

Giveaway

Just a reminder that my giveaway entries finish on 30 October so get your name on this blog post (click on link) for the chance to win lots of lovely goodies :-)

34 comments:

What a lovely idea ... but we have no baby food jars in our house either. I use nicely shaped coffee jars to store all sorts of crafty things, and I always recycle good pots from handcreams etc. I can't bear to throw things away if they can be used again.Love Kathy xxx

Ohooo I love this idea and shall be doing a shout out too methinks for some jars :0) Your crafty area looks gorgeous too, lovely to have little helpers :0) Shall be blogging too, if you don't mind about your beautiful clips, thank you so much for letting me order some :0) They are scrumptious. thanks for your comment too, Ohooo yes get in that dress, pop some music on and have a prance :0)

It's a very long time ago since I had a baby in this house, hence no jars. I'm just the same though, I can't stand throwing anything away which might be useful and alsorts of things get recycled. This is a great project, and one which children can help with too.

What a great idea!! I'm not much of a seamstress (at all!), but I think even I could manage this. And it would be the perfect solution to where to put all those spare buttons you get with clothes, and my sparse collection of needles which I always have to scour the house for in order to use. I guess a mustard jar would work just as well too? Thanks for sharing.Dan-x-

Oh, they are so pretty!! Well, I'm fessing up to having used jarred baby food for my babies when they were just going onto solids, although the tinned food was my favourite (if anyone hasn't tried Heinz babyfood in Apricot Custard flavour, go out and buy some now - for you, not the baby!!!). This is such a great idea and I think I may use it for all the jam jars that I hoard!! I love the way that you can store stuff inside as well as having a handy pincushion.

What a great idea! I have all my spare buttons in one big jar, they end up getting tipped out on the dining table when I'm searching for the 'right' button - and I have a few baby jars in the cupboard too! I'm thinking this could be a good present for a crafty friend - I'm hoping for a handmade Christmas this year!

My word those are good!! What a cracking idea, love that you have put the buttons inside, they'd make nice gifts for a stitchy type of friend I think!

Thanks for visiting my blog recently, and Im sorry its taken me a while to visit you - in answer to your question about printing, I actually do my cards at home - Ive got a pretty good printer that uses archival inks, but I have started to think about getting them done professionally too. Would you let me know if you discover any good printing outlets, Id be interested (and vice versa, if I discover any in due course I'll let you know).Love to youJulia x x x

These are FAB! Also being incapable of throwing out things that may some day be repurposed, I have a stash of baby food jars. They've become a variety of new things, but not pincushions...yet. Thanks for the inspiration :-)

About Me

Here you will find the ramblings of an arty eco person who enjoys nothing more than crafting and being in her veg patch. I am a mum of 3 children and live in Cambs UK I hope you enjoy your visit to my little blog.